Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World

Science News, Dec 18, 2004

STEALING HISTORY: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World

Tomb raiding is a centuries-old practice, but it's no longer a rag tag operation executed by land-based pirates. Today, millions of dollars exchange hands for goods stolen both by sophisticated tomb raiders and novice thieves. Traders of these antiquities are really nothing more than highbrow fences, according to Atwood In some cases, the thieves act as agents for collectors seeking particular objects. Sometimes those collectors keep the items, other times they sell or donate them to museums for tax write-offs. The trade in these goods is so brisk and seemingly reputable that it's sometimes difficult for museums to figure out where an artifact came from. Atwood focuses on the Royal Tombs of Sipan in Peru and, to a lesser extent, the Sumerian archaeological sites in Iraq. He documents the items that have been lost there and attempts to track them down. In particular, he chases the largest known piece of pre-Columbian gold, an 1,800-year-old artifact that was looted from a tomb in Peru in 1987 and ended up in a smuggler's car in New Jersey. In this case and others, the author considers the hurdles that Interpol and the FBI face in trying to suppress the stolen-antiquities market. Atwood explains the damage that looters do to archaeological sites and the course of archaeological research around the world. Without proper excavation, antiquities are nothing more than trinkets, Atwood declares. As such, they tell us nothing about how people lived before us. St Martins, 2004, 337 p., b&w plates, hardcover, $25.95.